cooling fans, lighting .. asking for advice

[AznRurouni007]

right now i'm running a basic midtower .. one 80mm case fan on the side opening for comonents, stock intel cooler/hs and psu fan. i'm wondering about which cooling options i could use to get the most out of my computer (its unfortunately pretty noisy as well). i was considering blue led case fans for case mod but would like to know if anyone has suggestions for these fans based on CFM ratings, dba noise, look, price and controllability (speed). the ide cables have all been changed to round cables, so that helps a bit with the airflow.

i've also been looking at some of the thermaltake heatpipe technology fanless heatsinks/coolers and i didn't know if anyone had tried them or has anything to say on them or could recommend any really good coolers, i would go with water cooling, but that doesn't look to be in my budget ATM =(.

thanks for any help posted, i think i have a couple other questions, but i forgot what they were, so i'll post a edit or a reply later on =)

`joe

[Demalii]

Well personally I've been using the sunbeam fans for over a year now and I love them, when there's enough of them it can get noisy, but the run an avg of 3000rpm +-200rpm, and they're quiet unless.. like I said, a bunch are together. They're cheap little fans, so you can get yourself as many as you need without hurtin the wallet.

As for the heatpipe coolers, I dunno anything about those, but I have a volcano 12+ for my cpu and it works great, it gets noisy after about 4000rpms but you don't have to keep it all the way up.

[heavywx]

I mostly use eather Vantec or Antec fans. I have a 120mm for exhaust on two of my towers and a 92mm on the other. Vantec puts out a 80mm highoutput fan that puts out like 90CFM but it's loud. Like a hairdryer on full blast loud. The Vantec tornado I think it's called. Antec puts out a 80mm blue led fan that produces 34 CFM
http://www.antec-inc.com/us/pro_deta...p?ProdID=77042

or
http://www.antec-inc.com/us/pro_deta...p?ProdID=77072

[AznRurouni007]

the volcano 12+ i'm wondering, how high do you have to turn it to keep your cpu at a decent temperature, i have a p4 2.8E prescott with AS5 thermal grease and stock intel cooler, runs at about .. according to the mobo temp. reader somewhere around 50 degs. celcius.

also for the 80mm's most come around 22-30 dba's with very small differences, how many of these "24dba ultraquiets" do yo need to make a significant noise increase? thx

[heavywx]

50c at idle is a bit warm. I don't know about the Volcano, but I run my cpu coolers and case fans at max rpm just because. I have the stock heatsink and fan on my 2.8 and a 120mm Vantec. My 2.8 idles at 95 to 97f. So your running hot for some reason.

[AznRurouni007]

yeah, mines going 122 right now, mid level activity, just browsing the internet =\ really wierd

[heavywx]

Whats your ambiant room temp. Because if it's a little warm in the room then your cpu is gonna run a little higher.

[knuckle50]

get the sp-94/sp-97 heatsink (intel/amd). they are the best heatsinks on the market. get a ys tech fan to go with it, and a few for your case. theyre about as good as you can get for the noise level.

[AznRurouni007]

ys fan .. found on pricewatch.com only >.< they're a little expensive, but the airflow does look to be pretty good, how high do you leave them at idle? cuz it can go from 18dba to around 40

sp94/sp-97 heatsink, what company makes them?

[knuckle50]

thermalright sp-94. i've found it as cheap as 39 bucks though thats VERY rare. average price is like 56 bucks. WELL worth it. the y s tech fan isnt that expensive, i got mine on newegg for ~$6.50 each. i tend to just ran my fans on high all of the time, because replacing a 6 dollar fan isnt really a big deal if i get a year more of life from my processor.